


Hammer

by BurningTea



Series: Season 11 fic [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s11e10 The Devil in the Details, M/M, not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:08:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5828002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lucifer takes Castiel's vessel, he is horrified to learn how broken the angel is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hammer

Lucifer remembers Naomi. One of Raphael’s, burning with her mission to heal the minds of angels. It’s only natural, after all, that some wear and tear will happen. Angels exist to complete their missions. They are their missions, more or less. That sort of intensity, the tasks the warrior classes have always been set, twist and splinter them after a while. A little tinkering keeps them running, sweet and easy, and Naomi had been very good at it.

In Lucifer’s memory, she’s a pale-gold hammer ready to tap and beat the angels back into their right shapes. A healer. Small, almost insignificant to one such as Lucifer, whose brilliance will never dim so much he would have needed her help, but a healer for the lesser ones. The ones like Castiel. She must have saved thousands from being thrown out for scrap.

It is with something like surprise, then, that he watches Naomi through Castiel’s memories of her.

“She looms, doesn’t she?” he muses, stirring the little Seraph’s impressions to view this from other angles. “I never really saw her as that tall. And you thought you could stand up to me, when she frightens you so much? A might overconfident, I’ve got to say.”

He feels the pulse of Castiel’s rage, grips it, contains it. It isn’t so very hard to do.

“Last of the Seraphs,” Lucifer says. “Huh. I’d have hoped for better. Punching above your weight for a while, eh? Still, we can’t have everything. I can see, though, why you’d say yes. Can’t exactly book in for a tune up, can you?”

Searing heat flashes from the bundle of Grace and awareness he has tied up neatly deep inside the vessel. Castiel can’t hear or see the world around him, not if Lucifer doesn’t want him to, and the Light-bringer isn’t cruel. He’s never been cruel. That was all Michael and his propaganda. 

Gabriel, at least, would have had more flair. Shame he’d run. An even greater shame Castiel’s human friends twisted Gabriel away from his brightest brother. His skill with poetic justice would have been welcome. Now, Lucifer will have to devise his own punishments.

The creak of the bunker door opening cuts his consideration of this short, and he smiles up at Sam Winchester, assessing the boy in his own space, as it were. Yes, there’s still something of that spark he used to admire. Something steel. It’s tarnished and fractured, but it’s still there. Being looked at without the disgust, the self-righteous rage, is a change. The last time he remembers Sam looking at him like that, he wore the guise of one of Sam’s loves. He does so like to play the part of a lover, to see the adoration his father denied him reflected back from someone’s eyes. 

“Uh. Cas? You okay?” Sam asks, frowning. 

Cas. Right. It’s not time to shout his name from the rooftops. Not yet. 

“Hi, Sam,” he says, flattening his voice the way Castiel has been flattened by the last few years.

The brave little Seraph who stood in that ring of fire and told Lucifer he would not take Sam Winchester is still in here, but he’s twisted almost past recognition. Lucifer can honestly not remember ever seeing an angel so broken who’s been forced to keep dragging himself on. Naomi must have become vicious, not to snuff this one out when she had him strapped down. If Lucifer didn’t see a tactical advantage to keeping Castiel’s knowledge, his creativity, around, he’d have done the job himself. An act of mercy. 

Despite the way the scrap of Grace struggles and hisses, he resolves to take care of matters when he can. He isn’t the evil thing Michael and his lies have made him out to be. He can be merciful. He can be kind. 

He steps past Sam and into the place the Winchesters call home, warmed by his own generosity. 

After all, a good workmen takes care of his tools.

********************************

Sam catches Dean in the kitchen, lowering his voice and half-reaching out as though he means to grab his brother. 

“You see it, right? Something’s…he’s not right.”

Dean scowls, turning away as he slaps bread onto a sandwich. 

“He seems just peachy to me,” Dean says, but there’s a bite to the words.

“Really?” Sam asks. 

Normally, it’s Dean who notices something’s up with Cas, just as long as it doesn’t mean facing up to Cas doing something sketchy. Then, Dean’s all about defend and deny. Sam runs his hand through his hair and closes his eyes. He thought they were past this. 

“Dean,” he says, “I really think we’ve got a situation here. Will you just…just listen to me.”

“Why?” Dean asks. “You’ve got Cas to listen to you. Go bug him. I’m eating.”

And he shoves what looks to be half a loaf of bread in his mouth. Sam wishes he believes Dean was even tasting it. He wishes he could let himself be swayed by Dean’s response, and just go back to the library and forget why he’s followed Dean in here. But he can’t. 

“He’s the problem,” Sam says. “Dean, he keeps staring at me. Like…like…”

“Like he wants to climb you,” Dean says, and rips another pieces out of the sandwich. He meets Sam’s eyes as he chews, the green stony.

“Oh,” Sam says. “Oh, fuck. No. No, I do not think… Wait, you don’t…? No, don’t be stupid, Dean. Cas doesn’t, like, want me. Not like that.”

“Then maybe he’s just decided to get into hair. You gotta admit, you have some class-A hair there, Sammy. Can’t blame a guy for staring.”

But Dean does. It’s suddenly horribly, painfully clear to Sam that Dean does blame Cas for staring. And that’s… Well, it’s enough to rock a few of Sam’s assumptions about Dean and Cas, but it isn’t the point. It isn’t enough to stop him worrying right now.

“Not like that, either,” he says, as firmly as he can manage without raising his voice. He remembers Cas hearing them through walls before. If he’s even a little bit right, that might not be something they can afford just now. 

“Dean, he’s not been the same since Hell.”

“Which time?”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Cas has been battered and buffeted by pretty much everything since he pulled Dean out of Hell, and even though the words aren’t usually directed at Sam, he feels it when other angels keep throwing at Cas, at Dean, the fact those experiences have meant change. Decay, corruption, whatever. As far as Sam can make out, most angels think change means ruin. 

Stepping closer, Sam rests his hand on the table top and leans in, trying to press how serious he is into Dean.

“We’ve both seen Cas in a load of different iterations, Dean. And he’s always Cas, still. Now? He’s just…off. One thing about Cas, he always cares. Always. Even when he’s burning his way through a room full of demons. The only times I’ve seen him shut that down are when something’s been controlling him.”

“And you think he’s been whammied again?” Dean asks, pausing with his sandwich partway to his mouth, brows pinching together. “What, you think Cas was wrong about Naomi being dead? Or some lackey of hers has picked up the screwdriver? Tried tightening a few nuts and bolts?”

Sam shakes his head, his eyes narrowing.

“No. No. Those times, he didn’t seem to really feel anything. Like, he’d been blanked. Repressed. This? It’s like he’s got the wrong emotions.”

“Wrong,” Dean says, the word flat and heavy. “You gonna tell him how he gets to feel now, Sammy? ‘Cos I thought you bleeding-heart types weren’t into that. Thought you were all about feeling your feelings.”

Pushing aside the jibe as he has so many over the years, Sam shakes his head again.

“No. Don’t be a dick, Dean. These are emotions I’ve never seen in Cas. Pride, smugness, this glint in his eye that he’s up to something.”

“You’ve never seen Cas look smug? Really?” 

Dean’s tone makes it clear he’s seen that. 

“Not like this. I’m telling you, it’s off. Just…look, come and see for yourself, will you? And be subtle.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean picks up the rest of his food and waves Sam ahead of him out of the kitchen. They don’t speak as they make their way back to where Sam left Cas, poking about in one of the storage rooms. He’d said he needed some special object, but hadn’t been real clear what. 

When they walk in, he’s elbow deep in a wooden chest filled with what look like stones, only they slip and slide like water.

“Hey,” Dean says, ambling over. If Sam didn’t know Dean as well as he does, he’d think it was casual. Cas should be able to tell the difference, too, but he doesn’t react. “What you got there?”

Cas’ lips twitch. It gives Sam the unsettling feeling the angel’s suppressing a smile. His reply is serious, sincere. 

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Such wonder in this world.”

Dean’s quiet for a beat. 

“Yeah. Wonder. Right. Are these water-stones gonna send the Darkness packing?”

Cas tilts his head, and Sam could be wrong, but it looks to be just a shade too far, a bit too obvious. 

“No,” he says. “But we should stop and appreciate the beauty around us, don’t you think, Dean?”

And he holds up one stone, shimmering and shining in the dim lighting, and brings it close to his face, as though it has a scent. It pings something in Sam’s mind, but he can’t quite place what. He smells roses, even though there are none around.

“You can marvel at every stone on the planet once we’ve got something to kill Amara, Cas,” Dean says. “I’ll take you to the beach. You can get your rocks off find rocks. Put the stone back and let’s get on with it.”

Cas holds the stone still, his eyes sliding around until he’s looking right at Dean. He looks to be regarding him from across the surface of the stone. 

“Of course, Dean,” he says, and that gravel voice has a lilt under it which sets Sam’s teeth on edge. “Anything for you.”

It’s not like Cas hasn’t said things like that before. Sam has a flash of a vial, held out in a closed fist, suddenly filled with blood. It’s just… It’s just this sounds mocking. And it sounds familiar. 

He smells roses again, and feels the tang of brimstone against his skin.

****************************************

Castiel roars in his cradle, fighting to break free despite the fact he offered himself for this. 

“Quiet, little one,” Lucifer says. “You wanted this. I’ll take care of you.”

And he will. He’ll take care of everything. 

****************************************

Dean slumps onto Sam’s bed, his arms crossed. 

“All right,” he says. “Fine. There’s something wrong. That…what was with sniffing that rock? I mean, sure, we’ve watched him sniff a dead guy, but never with that weird-ass look on his face. It was almost…”

He trails off, pressing his lips together.

“Almost like it was someone else,” Sam says, his voice low. 

They share a look, and Sam swears he will never bring up the look of devastation on Dean’s face. 

****************************************

Dean Winchester is as filled with loathing as he always was. More. He reeks of it. Lucifer wonders how Castiel can stand it. Could stand it. It isn’t as though the Seraph will need to suffer it again.

He has to access Castiel’s memories when he deals with Dean. The bond he saw between the two has only grown stronger since Sam tipped himself and two archangels into the Cage and every thought of Dean is rife with longing, with adoration. It’s sickening. 

Castiel is far past saving, and Lucifer combines what he hears from the Host with Castiel’s own memories. There are those in Heaven who fear Castiel, who loathe and despise him, more than they do Lucifer. He warned the Seraph, years ago, that he would be at the top of the hit list. He just didn’t realize it would hold true even with Lucifer back. 

The panicked chatter at his escape from the Cage doesn’t quite drown out the continued talk about Castiel. But then, another of Naomi’s treatments involved the slicing out of traumatic experiences, untangling the fine filigree of thought and memory and leaving smooth edges in their wake. Few in the Host kept their memories of meeting Lucifer, back in the day. They’re going off old stories, stories they feel are legends even if they acted in them at the time. Castiel, now… Well. They have lacked Naomi and her healing balm, and carry the knowledge that they followed Castiel. It lends a more vivid shade to the hatred. 

Lucifer turned his back on God, but Castiel has turned his back on his own kind, and it’s not a transgression the starved mass of the Host can tolerate. They need to give adoration to something, to someone, and Castiel has rejected it. 

“It will be healing to them as well as to you, when I grant you mercy,” he tells Castiel. 

He doesn’t understand why the Seraph weeps and rails. 

***************************************

Cas looks wrong in just his shirt, the jacket and coat thrown over the back of a table. His hair is too neat. He reaches for the wrong shoulder.

Dean is sick of seeing his loved ones worn as masks.

“What have you done with Cas?” he demands, because his own safety slips his mind as he stares into those eyes and sees hellfire gleaming back at him. “Give him back, you bastard, or I swear-”

“You swear?” Lucifer asks. His fingers dip into Dean’s flesh, brushing bone. “And what are your sworn words worth? You said yes to Michael, and ran before he could try on his new outfit. You promised you’d look after your brother, and you watched him drop into Hell. What have you promised Castiel, over the years? Or wasn’t he even important enough to rate a promise?”

Dean can’t back away. Those long finger grip him, a cage of a different sort.

“Cas knows how important he is.” His reply is fierce, but it falls cold into the space between them.

“Really?” Lucifer says, his mouth pulling into an expression that should never be on Cas’ face. “The memo might just have gone missing in transit on that one. Can’t say I’m getting the feeling he’s important from him. Expendable, broken, corrupted, but not important.”

Abruptly, he lets go, stepping back and adjusting his sleeves. It’s bizarre, how the Devil has more awareness of his appearance than Castiel, who lived as a human. There’s something intensely alien about Lucifer, and another layer which mimics humanity far better than Cas ever has. It’s the pride, maybe, or the self-interest. 

“You know, your little angel-that-could here is in quite the state. Rotting from the inside out. Or, to put it another way, his cogs are all bent and rusty. Now, I could hammer a few things straight, pour on some oil, but I’d only be dragging it out. At this point, you just need a whole new model.”

He twists aside as Dean lunges, no plan in his head except to get Lucifer to shut the fuck up. 

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, Dean.” He wags a finger in the air, his expression a parody of wise instruction. “We don’t attack in the middle of a status report. Where are your manners?”

Dean feels sick, shaky, the adrenaline in his system having nowhere to go until he can find a way to take a swing at Lucifer. There has to be a way. They haven’t gone through everything they have just to fail because the Devil tricked Cas.

“My manners?” he all but snarls. “What about yours? You never hear you shouldn’t break and enter?”

“Break and… Oh, you mean this?” Lucifer looks down at himself, pressing his hands to his own chest as though only just realizing who he wears. “You think I broke in? Come now, Dean. You know better than that. I don’t go anywhere I’m not wanted.”

Chill nausea trickles into Dean’s throat, and he swallows, taking a step back from Lucifer’s words, from the words he can see heading his way.

“No. I didn’t break in. Castiel chose this. He said yes, free and easy. Now, I can’t say for sure he didn’t do it to stop you or Sam, but let’s be honest here. I was nearly back in my box. He could have left it at that. No, your little boyfriend took one for the team so I could wipe that annoying bug from your system. Amara. The Darkness. My aunt.”

He pauses, looking up as though considering something that’s only just occurred to him.

“You know, it might just be he also did it because he thinks you don’t love him. And isn’t that just the saddest thing? Have you any idea what they say about him in Heaven? Oh, it is a cry for help. Everything he’s done since he met you…it’s just a wounded animal trying to find someone to pull the trigger. And none of you have had the common decency to put him out of his misery.”

Lucifer tilts his head, a parody of Cas, and curves his lips up in a smile that should have been gentle, should have been warm. It’s neither.

“Don’t you worry, Dean. When I’m done, I’ll do what no-one’s done for the poor, mangled creature. I’ll take care of him.”

Dean doesn’t remember much after that. Turns out, he can’t take the Devil in a fight.

*******************************************

Castiel is so damaged that Lucifer truly considers granting him an end right away, as soon as he’s left the bunker. After all, the Winchesters already know he’s out, and he’s inspected their storerooms for anything useful. The crystallized light from the fifth archangel, Raguel, has been transported with him to his throne room, the liquid-seeming rocks brilliant in their chest. With it, he has his strategy falling into place. He doesn’t need Castiel anymore.

No-one needs Castiel anymore, though the despair from Dean at his words surprised him.

Yes. He has done with the Seraph, and with no Naomi to beat the angel back into shape, to put a polish on him and sharpen his edge, it’s time to take care of this another way. 

When a hammer is broken, the only thing to do is cast it out.


End file.
